Earth and Space News: Ellora Hindu Cave 28 Accesses Waterfall Rainbows Over Ellora Caves

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 28 affords waterfall rainbows as most ancient cavern centrally anchored under a basalt cliff in the Ellora Caves of Maharashtra, India.

the waterfall that rainbows Ellora Hindu Cave 28 (behind waterfall; lower left center); Ellora Caves, Maharashtra state, western peninsular India; Monday, Sep. 12, 2016, 14:54: Ms Sarah Welch, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Ellora Hindu Cave 28 allows waterfall rainbows for cave architecture and art admirers at the adorned entry to the most ancient cave temple in the Ellora Caves, Maharashtra state, western peninsular India.

Ellora Hindu Cave 28, one of 34 cave temples and of 100-plus burrowed caverns built into basalt cliffs, boasts a beautiful base beneath a clifftop stream. The 1.24-mile (2-kilometer-) long basaltic scarp in the Sahyadri Hills (from Sanskrit सह्याद्रि, "benevolent") contains a freshwater stream that cascades downward past Ellora Hindu Cave 28. Ellora Hindu Cave 28 perhaps develops the highest humidity and moisture levels in the 800 to 1,600-year-old Ellora Caves dedicated to Buddhist, Hindu and Jain devotees.

The clifftop stream entertains Ellora Hindu Cave 28 visitors with any wildlife that still exists around the fifth through thirteenth-century cave temples of the Ellora Caves.

Ellora Hindu Cave 28, with 1,400-year-old cave temple architecture and sculptures from no later than the mid-seventh century, furnishes neither water nor wildlife fancies and functions.

The cave numbers to the Ellora Caves locationally guide the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre (WHC) site staff and visitors. They help with pedestrian traffic heading from southerly Buddhist caves 1 through 12, central Hindu caves 13 through 29 and northerly Jain caves 30 through 34. They indicate nothing of initial through terminal cave temple excavations, paintings and sculptures even as they integrate Buddhist, Hindu and Jain meditation in their installation order.

Buddhist, Hindu and Jain meditators journey from and to their spiritual centers even as itinerant artisans journeyed to the physical center of the subsequent Ellora Caves.

Itinerant artisans knew subsequent Ellora Hindu Cave 28 as physical center of the basalt cliff and perhaps also of the clifftop stream that kindled rainbow waterfalls.

Buddhist, Hindu and Jain itinerant artisans and merchants and itinerant and resident monks lodged in their religion's respectively painted, sculpted cave temples in the Ellora Caves. The Hindu rulers of the sixth through seventh-century Kalachuri dynasty, from their capital north of modern Maharashtra state, made the first Ellora Caves Hindu cave temples. From their royal niches at Manishmati, somewhere on the Narmada River banks between nowaday Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra states, Kalachuri rulers perhaps nurtured Hindu itinerant artisans.

Ellora Hindu Cave 28 anciently offered simple, stark organizations of vestibule, dormitory cells and shrine for itinerant merchants and monks to occupy and observe daily devotions.

Ellora Hindu Cave 28 preserves a square altar's stone base and two sets of religious statues as earliest Hindu sculpted sacred objects in the Ellora Caves.

Itinerant artisans queued up one dvarapala (from Sanskrit द्वारपाला, "guard [of god Kubera's wealth]") guardian on each side of the Ellora Hindu Cave 28 shrine door. The door statues perhaps revere Vaishnava (from Sanskrit वैष्णव) representatives as traditional respecters of Vishnu (from Sanskrit विष्णु, "all-pervader") as Ekadeva (from Sanskrit एकदेव, "Supreme Lord"). The front wall shelters a sculpted Mahadevi (from Sanskrit महादेवी, "great goddess"), eight-armed deity synonymous with Parvati, spouse of Mahadeva (from Sanskrit महादेव, "great god") Shiva.

Ellora Hindu Cave 28 perhaps tells most truly, with cliffside waterfall rainbows and clifftop stream, whether amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles travel around the Ellora Caves.

entrance to Ellora Hindu Cave 28; Ellora Caves, Maharashtra state, western peninsular India; Wikimedia Commons page created Tuesday, Sep. 6, 2016, 05:33, via UploadWizard: Anupamg, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

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Earth and Space News

Friday, April 24, 2020

Ellora Hindu Cave 28 Accesses Waterfall Rainbows Over Ellora Caves

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